


1-14 Lars And The Cool Kids

by iippo



Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [14]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26611315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iippo/pseuds/iippo
Summary: Steven and Lars get to hang out with the cool kids in town, Buck, Jenny, and Sour Cream, but their teenage shenanigans get them into deadly magical trouble.
Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796686
Kudos: 3





	1-14 Lars And The Cool Kids

**Author's Note:**

> An alternative universe. See series page for details.

The Crystal Gems, at this point in time consisting of Steven Universe and Amethyst, were spending the lovely spring morning checking out a flooded abandoned quarry near Beach City. Amethyst was surveying the situation from the top of the cliffs, while Steven took a closer look.

“This doesn't look good at all,” Amethyst muttered, lost in thought, as she saw how far the magical moss had spread in the pond. She knew that she was 14 years late, but she was still surprised at the extent of the mess.

Steven had jumped onto a rock poking out of the water and was reaching to touch the moss. It wiggled towards him. “Whoa! Cool!” He exclaimed.

“No, Steven, wait! Don't go near that stuff!” Amethyst yelled.

The moss crawled towards Steven, about to grab him. Amethyst picked up a nearby boulder and hurled it onto the rock Steven was perched on, catapulting him into the air with a “whoa!”

“Steven's here!” Steven yelped as Amethyst caught him.

Amethyst set Steven on the ground. “You have to be careful, Steven!”

“Why?” Steven asked. Amethyst pointed at the pond, where a duck was sitting on a floating log. The moss crawled forward and engulfed the log; the duck barely escaped with all its feathers by taking wing.

“What is that stuff?” Steven wondered.

“It's the moss that Rose Quartz kept on the hill,” Amethyst explained and pointed to the hill beyond the valley.

“My mom kept this stuff?” Steven asked quietly, wanting to learn everything and anything about his mom.

“Rose used to climb that hill every spring and tend to the moss at the top,” Amethyst explained. “But now that Rose is...” she glanced at Steven’s stomach, where she knew the Rose Quartz gem was embedded under his shirt, “...gone, the moss is on the move!” She finished, trying to not feel how she was feeling.

Steven understood. “It's lost,” he observed, sorrowful.

“It's not lost, it's gross,” Amethyst said, slightly more acerbically than she intended. “But, Rose loved it anyway. She saw the beauty in everything, no matter how gross.” Steven stared at her, trying to read her expression. Amethyst didn’t like the way she was no longer sure whether she was talking about the moss or herself.

“Fortunately, I know just what to do in this situation!” Amethyst declared with a flick of her hair, focusing on the mission at hand. “This is why I get up in the morning,” Steven whispered, excited to see more gem magic. Amethyst led Steven to the rocks that framed the path leading to the pond and showed him a yellow roll of tape.

“Is this... police tape?” Steven asked, confused.

“Isn't this great?” Amethyst said with a huge grin. “This way, we don't even have to use magic. Humans will just see this and walk away!” Amethyst explained her genius plan.

They got to work, spreading out across the path, ready to throw the roll of tape to each other.

“Don't hold back!” Steven yelled, sitting a top a rock waving his arms, ready to catch.

“I never... do!” Amethyst replied and pitched the roll to Steven, holding onto the end so that a long tail of tape trailed across the path. Steven wound the tape around a branch and threw it back to Amethyst, who ran incredibly fast around a rock to attach the tape.

They tied tape to everything they could think of, and when they felt there was enough tape – and the tape was running out – Steven took the ends and tied them into a bow in the center.

“Perfect!” He stepped back to admire their handiwork.

“Now we can come up with a plan to move the moss back to its hill,” Amethyst said and started to head out.

“Who wants to get some lunch?” Steven asked, not noticing that Amethyst had already gone. “Just me, then? ...Nice.”

\- - -

Steven made his way to the Boardwalk, and sang as he walked: “Gettin' me a pi, gettin' me a -zza. Gettin' me a pi-pi-pi-pi-pizza! Gettin' me a pi, gettin' me a -zza. Hmm, mmm, mm, mm~ Hey, is that Lars? Lars!” He stopped singing when he noticed Lars Barriga standing by the wall of the Fish Stew Pizza.

Lars noticed Steven approaching and groaned. “Why now?” He tried to pretend he didn’t see Steven.

“Got a high five for you from waaaay doowwwwn toooown!” Steven hollered to Lars and ran towards him with a hand in the air. ”Ohhhhhh!”

“No, Steven! No high fives!” Lars whisper-yelled to get Steven to stop.

“Mmmmm, okay,” Steven said and placed his high five onto Lars’s chest. Lars smacked his hand away.

“Steven!” Lars hissed, aggravated.

Steven laughed. “So... how come you're not at the Big Donut?” He asked.

“I don't spend my whole life at work,” Lars replied angrily and flipped his jacket over his shoulder. “I do... other things.”

“Like standing against this wall?” Steven observed quizzically.

“What does it look like?!” Lars snapped.

“Looks like you're doing a lot of nothing,” Steven judged Lars’s delinquent ways.

Lars missed the accusatory tone in Steven’s voice. “That's the plan, Steven,” he flipped his jacket again, “just playing it cool today, you know?”

Steven realised what Lars was doing. “We are so much alike.”

“Excuse me?” Lars said and frowned.

“You want to get a fresh pizza right out of the oven, but you don't want to seem too desperate, right? Well, there's no need to be ashamed. Just walk right in and ask. That's what I always do!” Steven laid out what he thought were Lars’s cards and headed to the restaurant’s door.

“Ah, uh Steven, don't go in there right now!” Lars tried to stop Steven.

Steven glanced in through the window and noticed there was a group of teenagers in the restaurant. “Oh, hey! Isn't that Kiki's sister and her friends?”

“Jenny, Sour Cream, and Buck Dewey,” Lars whispered in an almost-reverential tone.

“Oh, you know those guys?” Steven perked up, excited to be introduced to new people.

“N-not quite, but I'm sure we'll hang at some point,” Lars replied, trying to keep up his cool appearances.

“You should go in and talk to them,” Steven encouraged.

Lars flustered at Steven’s extreme directness. “T-T-That's not how these things work, Steven! The plan is to keep it cool and let them come to me!” He leaned against the wall again, striking a cool pose.

The teens started to come out of the restaurant.

“Here they come,” Steven observed.

“Aah! Steven, turn around! Act natural!” Lars panicked and looked away quickly, sweating profusely.

”Tell Dad I'll be back later,” one of the teens, Kiki’s sister Jenny, shouted as she exited the pizza parlour and walked off.

“I don't think they saw you,” Steven pointed out to Lars.

“Steven, you were blocking me with your... big hair! Aah!” Lars yelled in frustration.

“Sorry,” Steven apologised. “I'll go tell them to look over here,” he added and walked over to the teens before Lars managed to stop him.

“Steven, no, don't go over there!” Lars whispered after him, but Steven didn’t hear. “I hate you!” Lars hissed at Steven’s back getting further from him and looked away again. He had missed his chance and it was all because of Steven and now he had to spend the rest of the day at home doing nothing.

Steven walked right up to the group of teens and interrupted their conversation about muffins.

“Hi! My name's Steven!” He said cheerily and raised his hand up for a high five.

After a surprised moment when no one did anything, one of teens, wearing a jacket and sunglasses, gave Steven a high five and introduced himself. “Buck Dewey.” The other two followed suit.

”They call me Sour Cream,” said the tall, blonde boy in a hoodie, high-fiving Steven.

“I'm Jenny,” the girl with the bobbed hair and hoop earrings replied as she also high-fived him. Steven was overjoyed having got three high fives.

Lars was observing the proceedings, suffering. “Aah, he's gonna wreck everything! What are they saying? I can't hear them!” He mumbled, with a hand over his mouth. Steven was trying to wave at Lars, hopping from one foot to another in an attempt to catch his attention. “Ugh! Why is he dancing?!” Lars started sobbing. “No-ho-ho! My life is horrible!” He covered his face in his hands.

“Hey, Lars!” Steven said, having walked back up to him.

Lars snapped into a cool pose. “Yo.”

“They invited us along for a ride,” Steven explained and pointed to the teens.

“Huh? W-Wait a minute, they— you—?” Lars couldn’t believe it, that getting to know new people was as simple as talking to them, and that Steven – a weird, awkward _kid_ – had just up and done it... “Steven, you got lucky,” Lars snapped, shutting down his spiraling thoughts. “So don't ruin this with any of your lame schtick.”

“Pew pew! You got it!” Steven said, shooting Lars with finger guns, and laughed.

Lars face-palmed, but he didn’t have time to do anything about the situation, as the whole group walked up to Jenny's convertible, which was actually the pizzeria’s delivery car decorated with mushroom and pepperoni decals.

“Hop on in guys,” Jenny held the door open and, after the back seat crew got on, took her seat behind the wheel.

“Ah yeah, middle seat!” Steven celebrated as he squeezed between Buck and Lars on the back seat, while Sour Cream rode shotgun.

“Where'd you get that rad shirt, Steven?” Buck asked, and Steven pulled his shirt taut to see the star design better.

“I have no idea where any of my clothes come from,” Steven admitted.

“That’s true, with the endless networks of contractors, subcontractors and middle men, there really is no way to know where any of our consumer products originate,” Buck replied.

Lars, not wanting to miss out on the friendly bonding action with Buck, said: “Hey, check out my shirt.” He tugged on his shirt so that Buck could see the snake design better.

“Oh, that snake is nasty,” Buck observed.

“Oh,” Lars faked a laugh in an attempt to fix the situation. “Yeah, I hate snakes!”

“Oh, what? That's too bad, some snakes are pretty cool,” Buck said.

Lars felt totally lost as to whether Buck thought snakes were cool or nasty, but as Jenny started up the car, Steven changed the subject: “Sounds like it's time to buckle up!”

“Quit being lame, Steven,” Lars snapped at him. He was sure that cool people did not wear seatbelts.

Sour Cream turned to look at the back seat. “Hey man, there's nothing lame about seat belt safety,” he said with a frown.

“Car does not move 'till we're all buckled up,” Jenny announced matter-of-factly, and Steven and Lars put on their seat belts.

“Yeah, now let's get some spaced-out beats up in here,” Sour Cream said and tuned the car radio to an electronica station. The music was electronic, lo-fi hiphop beats and Sour Cream started to sway his arms slowly, saying “Yeah, I could rave to this.”

Lars attempted again to make a connection, and said: ”Hey, this car is really cool Jenny,”

“It's just the delivery car for my Dad's lame shop. Makes me smell like pizza,” Jenny said lazily, as if the car was the least interesting part of her life, only a means to an end. “Where to, y'all?” She asked the group and they pulled out of the parking lot.

“I don't even know,” Buck said, not wanting to take the responsibility of suggesting anything in case the others disapproved. Sour Cream was still intently listening to the music.

“Oh, can we stop by the Big Donut?” Steven suggested as they rounded the corner and saw the building. He reckoned everyone would appreciate some snacks.

“That old place?” Jenny asked incredulously.

“Man that place is a drag,” Buck said.

“But that's where Lars wor—“ Steven started to defend the donut shop, but Lars started suddenly coughing so loudly that no one heard Steven finish his sentence. “Quiet, Steven,” Lars hissed among his coughs. He did not want the cool kids to know he worked at a place they thought was a drag.

“You need some water?” Steven asked, looking at Lars with concern.

They drove a little further and Steven spotted the Funland Arcade.

“Funland Arcade is the best! Let's do that!” He suggested.

“Man, I beat all the ‘G’s in there like 3 million times,” Sour Cream said dismissively.

Steven gasped in awe: “No way!” It was the coolest thing he had ever heard of.

“Yeah, me too,” Lars added, and Steven gasped again: “No way!”

Sour Cream looked away and frowned. “Honestly though, I'm just exaggerating to sound cool,” he admitted, unable to be dishonest. Lars felt sheepish but didn’t admit to doing the same thing.

Steven patted Sour Cream on the shoulder. “I appreciate your honesty.”

They drove up next to the city park and stopped to see what was going on. Mayor Dewey was holding a political rally.

“Hey Buck, isn't that your dad?” Jenny pointed out.

The mayor was speaking into the microphone: “... Another reason you should re-elect me: I love babies. Will you look at that, a baby!” An aide brought a baby to the podium and held it out. “Gonna kiss it...” the mayor said and gave the baby a long kiss while the crowd applauded.

“Hmm, I like his policies on babies,” Steven mused.

“Man, he never kisses me like that,” Buck said bitterly.

“That's rough, bro,” Lars said, hoping to impress Buck with sympathy.

“It's not rough,” Buck countered. “The lack of daddy kisses in my life made me who I am.” Lars looked away embarrassed and worried that Buck thought he was soft.

“Oh my gosh guys, we should check out Dead Man's Mouth!” Jenny said as they were approaching the edge of town.

“What's Dead Man's Mouth?” Steven asked, slightly nervous.

“Oh it's this lake where some dude died. Or it looks like a mouth? I forget the specifics,” Buck clarified and Steven felt a little better.

“Dead Man's Mouth. Here. We. Come!” Jenny announced and shifted up a gear as they took to the highway.

“Sounds good to me,” Steven said.

It wasn’t a long drive and Jenny announced “we’re here” as they arrived. Everyone got out of the car. Steven looked ahead and saw a familiar mess of police tape, and realised where they were.

“Y-ya know what? I know this place may seem cool, but it's actually a lot less cool than you think. W-why don't we just go have some more fun at the Boardwalk?” He stammered, noticeably agitated.

“Steven, stop being lame,” Lars glared at him, concerned that Steven was his only ticket to hanging out with the cool kids, and that whatever Steven did reflected badly on him too. “Let's check this place out,” he said to the others and they strolled forward.

Steven was really unsure of what to do, but then he remembered what Amethyst had said. “Oh, pfft, the police tape,” he laughed in relief and followed the group a few paces behind.

The group stopped as they saw the police tape surrounding the entrance.

“Huh, police tape...” Sour Cream muttered, then unceremoniously ripped down the tape bow. Steven gasped in shock. “Awesome,” Sour Cream chuckled as he walked on through.

“I'm above the law,” Buck boasted and tore down some more tape.

“Who wants to go for a swim?” Jenny asked with a teasing lilt in her voice.

Steven stared at the moss, agitated, while the others began to take off their coats. “Pants become shorts,” Sour Cream said as converted his pants into shorts by opening the zippers in the pantlegs.

Lars quickly took off his shirt, trying to not reveal his insecurity about being topless, and began to walk toward the swamp.

Steven got in his way, and said: “Lars, don't go in there, it's dangerous!”

“Steven, you trying to scare us?” Jenny asked with that same teasing tone of voice and laughed.

“Build an atmosphere, I appreciate that,” Buck said and smiled.

Sour Cream wiggled his fingers and went “ooooh!”

“Wait!” Steven cried.

“I'm not that slow,” Buck said and with that the three of them jumped into the water. Lars tried to follow suit but Steven grabbed him by the midriff and physically stopped him from moving.

“Hey, what are you doing man?!” Lars yelled, annoyed as hell.

Steven was tearing up. “Don't!” He pleaded.

Lars walked forward, pushing Steven along towards the swamp. “Steven, what. Is. Your. Deal??” They got to the edge of the water with Steven’s ankles getting wet as he was being pushed in front of Lars and into the water, when Lars gasped and stopped. He watched the others suddenly getting engulfed by the moss and dragged underwater. Lars fell backwards, yelping in fear.

“Oh no!” Steven yelled, but then noticed that a small patch of moss was attacking his foot, clinging to it. “Aaah!” He yelled.

“What's going on?!” Lars yelled, confused.

“It's some kind of magic moss my Mom kept!” Steven yelled, frantically tearing moss away from his foot.

“Wait, your mom—?” Lars said, but he was interrupted when all of a sudden Jenny, Sour Cream and Buck reemerged on the water surface, covered in moss. They crawled towards the edge of the swamp and collapsed, as the moss covered their whole bodies.

“Guys, hang on!” Lars yelled and ran to help them.

Lars and Steven started ripping the moss off of Jenny, Sour Cream and Buck, but the moss was growing back too rapidly. Steven looked around for anything that could help them and noticed the hill in the distance. He remembered what Amethyst had said about the moss being lost.

“Lars, I know what we have to do-“ he started, but Lars interrupted him.

“This is all your fault!” He yelled at Steven and teared up. “I knew if something went wrong today it would be because of you! Now I'm never going to be friends with these guys. All because of your... weird mom!”

Steven’s eyes widened in shock and rage, his pupils contracting. Lars realised that he had crossed a line, but it was too late.

“What do YOU know about my mom?!” Steven yelled and poked Lars in the chest. “I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO KNOW MY MOM! But I DO know, she saw beauty in everything! Even in stuff like THIS!” He pointed at the moss, “and even in jerks like YOU!” He poked Lars in the chest again, hard.

Lars looked away, ashamed, and Steven sighed. “Now help me get them to the car,” he said, deflated.

They dragged the moss-covered bodies into the backseat of the car and buckled them in.

“Lars, hurry! This moss belongs at the top of that hill,” Steven pointed as he got in the passenger seat. “Come on Lars, what are you waiting for?”

“Uh, Steven, I don't know how to drive a stick shift,” Lars admitted.

“I’ll talk you through it!” Steven yelled, “but we haven’t got any other options. I can’t even reach the pedals!”

Lars stared at Steven for a moment and took a deep breath. “...Okay, alright, let's do this. Ignition?” He said as he got in the car.

“Put one foot on the clutch and the other on the brake and turn the key,” Steven explained and the engine started as Lars followed the instructions. Steven grabbed the stick and shifted it to first gear. “Now take your foot off the brake. Then press slowly on the gas pedal while at the exact same time releasing the clutch.” Lars tried but the engine stalled. “It’s fine, just try again,” Steven said as Lars growled in frustration. “Brake, clutch, key,” – the engine started – “release brake, then gas and clutch at the same time. Think of a seesaw,” Steven explained and motioned with his hands the coördinated motion Las should do with his feet, and it worked.

The car, still facing the water, lurched forward towards the swamp.

“Steven, no, put it in reverse!” Lars yelped and hit the brakes as the front tires dipped into the pond.

“Sorry, my bad!” Steven answered. “Press clutch!” Lars did so and Steven shifted to reverse. “Now do the seesaw again!”

The car jolted backwards and they reversed all the way back onto the road. Lars shifted gears to first and began driving at a breakneck speed towards the hill. The moss in the backseat had began to creep towards the front of the car.

“Jenny's gonna kill MEEEEEE!” Lars screamed. “What's gonna happen when we get to the top of that hill?”

“I don't know!” Steven yelled in response.

“You don't know?!” Lars couldn’t believe his ears.

“That's just where the moss wants to be!” Steven explained defensively. The moss began to engulf the front of the car, including Steven and Lars. “Aah!” Steven screamed as he noticed.

“Huh?” Lars said and glanced back, and also yelled as he noticed what the moss was doing. “It's getting everywhere!”

“Keep going!” Steven croaked, ripping moss off of his neck.

“We're almost there,” Lars mumbled as they got to the end of the road near the top of the hill. He managed to pull on the parking brake before the moss engulfed its handle. “What do we do now?”

“We got to get up there. Hurry!” Steven started dragging one of the moss-covered bodies towards the peak, hoping against hope that it wasn’t too late. Lars grabbed hold of the other two and started the slow slog upwards.

The moss was engulfing both of them too.

“I'm... getting stuck!” Lars groaned and he fell to his knees.

“No, don't... give up,” Steven encouraged him as he himself fell down and succumbed to the moss. All but their faces were covered in the green embrace.

“Steven...” Lars croaked softly.

“What?” Steven asked, also struggling to speak.

“...This sucks!” Lars managed to spit out right before the moss covered him completely.

“Laaaaar—“ Steven yelled aggravated at him, but was interrupted by also being completely mossed over.

The moss-covered bodies remained lying prone on the hill under the grey sky.

But then, the clouds began to clear and the sun peeked from behind the heavy curtains. And where the light touched the moss, pink flowers began to blossom. The blooms took flights and as they began to float around the hill and down towards the city below, the moss cleared from the group. Everyone gasped for air as they were freed from the constricting vegetation. Steven and Lars were freed first, and they watched over the edge as the flowers filled the sky.

“The moss was just trying to bloom,” Steven realised, understanding why his mother had been tending to the moss all those years.

“Ughh, what happened?” Jenny asked, coming to.

“I think I died,” Sour Cream said sitting up straight, eyes wide open in shock.

“Guys, look!” Jenny pointed

Jenny, Sour Cream and Buck rushed to join Lars and Steven on the edge of the hill and saw the view with the pink flowers floating everywhere. “Woah!” They said as one.

“You can see all of Beach City from up here,” Sour Cream mused.

“It's beautiful,” Buck added.

“Yeah... how did we even get here?” Jenny asked.

“Well, Steven thought that—“ Lars started, but Steven interrupted him:

“Lars drove us here!”

“Oh yeah, Lars! Super cool,” the group murmured and made encouraging and accepting hand gestures and facial expressions.

“I can totally rave to this,” Sour Cream observed, moved by the mood.

“Go go go...” Jenny and Buck encouraged him, and Sour Cream pulled out his pants legs from his pockets and started spinning them like poi, while mimicking the airhorn sound effect. The others chanted his name.

Steven stuck out his hand in an attempt to high five Lars but Lars grinned, shook his head and high-fived Steven’s chest instead. Steven looked at him starry-eyed.

“Yeah!” Steven laughed and high-fived Lars's chest as well.

It went on too long and Lars got uncomfortable. “Okay, that's enough,” he said and folded his arms.


End file.
